The stage is all set for polling in 17 Lok Sabha constituencies on Monday with 525 candidates in the fray, an average of 31 candidates for each constituency. Curtains came down on the high-voltage election campaign on Saturday evening, and political parties are now focussing on ensuring good turnout at the polling stations as every vote would count in three-cornered contests likely to be witnessed in a majority of the constituencies.
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While the first Lok Sabha election in Telangana saw a straight fight between the Congress and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (now Bharat Rashtra Samithi), the situation changed in the next election — the BJP emerged as a force to reckon with, winning four seats.
The political landscape saw much bigger changes in the subsequent years resulting in the scope for triangular contests in a majority of the 17 constituencies. Top leaders of the Congress and the BJP have campaigned extensively for their respective candidates over the past few weeks while BRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao took the burden of campaigning for his party candidates in spite of not being in the best of health.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and several Union Ministers urged the voters to exercise their franchise in favour of the BJP for a “stable government” while the Congress stalwarts led by Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra tried to explain to the people about the “ill-effects” of the BJP rule over the past 10 years. Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao conducted a bus yatra across the State and interacted with voters to ensure maximum seats for the pink party, stressing that only then can the voice of Telangana be heard in the corridors of power at the national level.
As a result, the Lok Sabha elections, which usually do not attract attention as compared to Assembly polls, saw a huge response for the meetings addressed by these leaders, leaving the three major parties guessing about how much of the response will actually translate into votes in their favour.
Meanwhile, election authorities have made elaborate arrangements for the smooth conduct of polls, especially in areas identified as critical and expenditure-sensitive. Around three lakh personnel, including 1.96 lakh on election duty, have been deployed in the State. Elaborate security arrangements had been made with 160 companies of Central armed police forces, 72,000 personnel from State police, and 20,000 drawn from neighbouring States to prevent any untoward incident, especially in 9,900 out of the 35,809 polling stations that have been identified as critical.
Election officials, for the first time, set up 453 auxiliary polling stations in remote areas enabling voters, who were hitherto forced to go on long treks, to exercise their franchise. Thus, there are less than 25 voters in 11 such auxiliary polling stations, 22 polling stations where voter strength is less than 50 and another 54 where there are less than 100 voters.